|
|
 |
|
| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 13 2005 : 8:12:09 PM
|
Does anyone else out there drink as much coffee as I? It's one of those things that I really don't want to give up, as it fuels my workout, and makes my day so happy. But I have to wonder if it's interfering with my meditation practice. I drink it after my morning meditation, but it's a strong drug, and I drink a lot of it, so the effects have got to be longlasting. And what about alcohol? Jim - I know that you and your karma drink wine - do you notice that it clouds your mind in any way? I can do the alcohol with moderation, but not the caffeine. I think I'd have to quit, rather than cut back.
Any imput?
meg |
Edited by - AYPforum on Feb 05 2007 08:55:18 AM |
|
|
Adam West
23 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2005 : 03:46:51 AM
|
Hi Meg,
I find coffee and certainly alcohol very numbing on the nervous system. Since in my view, the nervous system is the lens through which I access higher consciousness, it is most important to me what impacts I have on it :-) I find alcohol to have incredible depressing affects on the nervous system; toxicity as a general rule lowers the vibration and impedes the experience of pure bliss consciousness. Coffee and alcohol can be just treated as any toxic agent, the less the better according to my experience :-)
In kind regards,
Adam.
|
 |
|
|
Richard
United Kingdom
857 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2005 : 06:10:07 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by meg
Does anyone else out there drink as much coffee as I? It's one of those things that I really don't want to give up, as it fuels my workout, and makes my day so happy. But I have to wonder if it's interfering with my meditation practice. I drink it after my morning meditation, but it's a strong drug, and I drink a lot of it, so the effects have got to be long lasting. And what about alcohol? Jim - I know that you and your karma drink wine - do you notice that it clouds your mind in any way? I can do the alcohol with moderation, but not the caffeine. I think I'd have to quit, rather than cut back.
Any imput?
meg
HI Meg
I also drink coffee in the morning after my first med session, two large mugs that's about four scoops in my case, It does set me up for the day and I have no intention of stopping it yet I will wait for messages from my body, but I do think much more than that would have a detrimental effect.
Blessings
RICHARD |
|
|
|
lucidinterval1
USA
193 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2005 : 09:10:47 AM
|
Hello All,
I had to give up the coffee thing. It became too much stimulation. Occasionally I can enjoy 1 cup of tea but not much more. Not sure if it's due to pranayama but I suspect that it is. The funny thing is that when I quit coffee, I had no withdrawel symptoms.
Paul |
|
|
|
Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2005 : 09:53:39 AM
|
I never drank coffee mostly because I never liked the taste and I figured why push past that, so I can become addicted? Caffeine in general though makes me too jittery and I can't feel my nervous-system clearly so I don't enjoy that feeling.
In regards to alcohol, I was always an occasional social drinker but since things took off with AYP I find it very difficult to drink any alcohol at all. When I know that I will be doing something social and that I may have a drink or 2, I try to make sure I do my practices before hand. Overall, I never seem to want to have too many drinks anymore as I know it will affect how I feel the next day. One or two drinks also impacts on the way I sleep, so it always seems to be a price to pay in some way.
Each AYP session has become very important to me and I am very reluctant to sacrifice the quality because of having had too much to drink. Having said all that, I don't think there is any major negative impact from having the occasional drink or two.
Anthem11
|
Edited by - Anthem on Sep 14 2005 09:55:06 AM |
|
|
|
Lili
Netherlands
372 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2005 : 10:43:16 AM
|
I drink 1 cup of coffee/day but think I'm addicted too  . Recently I've been experimenting with watering down my addiction by mixing caffinated and decaffinated coffee.
|
|
|
|
Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 15 2005 : 01:30:08 AM
|
Don't have time to read the thread, just responding to Meg (hoping to get back soon and read other replies).
We're trying to cut through cloudy thinking, upturn delusion, and generally get clear by wiping a whole lot of caked on mud off of our windshields. We're all also trying pretty diligently, or we wouldn't be here! That being the case, why intentionally go the other way? Muck ourselves up and zone out? Toddlers spin in circles and fall down laughing for the buzz. Grown-ups have more sophisticated highs, but the crudeness remains. Compared to yoga, the notion of drinking a bunch of alcohol or getting high strikes me as being as attractive as spinning in circles and falling down. It's like.....why?
When I saw things in this light....that sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and drug buzzes are crude buzzes that obscure my clarity...the attraction plummeted.
That said, I like the TASTE of wine. And that is less easy to give up (and, since it's equally an attachment, it's no more noble of me!). I'm also grappling with the fact that red wine is good for my low cholesterol. So I may stay with a single glass per day with dinner for a while. But the idea of getting tipsy repels me. There's no guilt issue; I don't think there's anything wrong/bad/evil about any of these things. It's just that bliss is so much better than buzz. Cheaper, too! :)
If anyone doesn't feel the same, it doesn't make you unyogic. I do plenty of unyogic things! We all unfold unevenly, in fits and starts. Don't push it, let your bhakti lead you, informed by your intelligence.
Oh, and a great many sadhus - wandering Indian holy men - are totally nuts about hash. So there you go...... |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 15 2005 01:36:55 AM |
|
|
|
Richard
United Kingdom
857 Posts |
Posted - Sep 15 2005 : 11:33:00 AM
|
Hi again
I don't drink alcohol not on a regular basis anyway, simply because I don't like the effect. I might have the occasional glass of wine if I am pressed or the occasional beer but never to the point of feeling even a little bit tipsy, perhaps I'm a little bit freaky in the fact that I want to feel in control of my mind all the time. Other drugs of the recreational type don't interest me but I admit that in the past I have tried an awful lot of psychotropic things as I had an interest in the shaman way before I started AYP but that has driven all those things way into the past.
Blessings
RICHARD |
|
|
|
Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Sep 16 2005 : 1:31:30 PM
|
Thanks for your responses. The overall message I'm getting is that alcohol obscures the view, but some of us do it anyway, because it's just one of those fine things in life. But coffee - for me, anyway - has the opposite effect: it clears the clouds, albeit temporarily, and affords a clearer view. (I love the idea of coffee as an entheogen, but that would be taking it a bit too far). Are there grades of addiction, I wonder. We're addicted to caffeine, we're addicted to God - is bhakti just another word for addiction?
m |
|
|
|
lucidinterval1
USA
193 Posts |
Posted - Sep 16 2005 : 3:32:00 PM
|
Meg,
An interesting question. <We're addicted to caffeine, we're addicted to God - is bhakti just another word for addiction?>
Bhakti is a desire for salvation. Addictions are something to hide behind. It is really the opposite of salvation.
With Peace and Respect,
Paul |
|
|
|
david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Sep 17 2005 : 09:21:56 AM
|
To add another spin, it all depends on where you are at. Regarding caffeine, before my sadhana, I loved it, craved it, and used it a lot. In the early days of my sadhana, I discovered that it was keeping me agitated and was not allowing my body to take deep rest it was looking for. So I gave it up. Then I became very sensitive to it, and a jolt of it would mess up my meditation for a day.
Then eventually, I changed still further to the state where it does not agitate me, and does not interfere with my meditation, but if I take it for more than a day or two, it is somewhat cutting into my states of deep rest (though not as much as it was in the beginning). So I use it occasionally (maybe once a month or so when say travelling or such things), and I blithely, without any craving, stop it when I feel I need to.
-D
quote:
Originally posted by meg
Thanks for your responses. The overall message I'm getting is that alcohol obscures the view, but some of us do it anyway, because it's just one of those fine things in life. But coffee - for me, anyway - has the opposite effect: it clears the clouds, albeit temporarily, and affords a clearer view. (I love the idea of coffee as an entheogen, but that would be taking it a bit too far). Are there grades of addiction, I wonder. We're addicted to caffeine, we're addicted to God - is bhakti just another word for addiction?
m
|
|
|
|
Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 18 2005 : 11:14:40 AM
|
Meg, the notion that something external to us is required to become who we truly are is the very heart and soul of addiction.
You can't help having this impression about coffee...it's not "bad" or "wrong" or "sinful". It's what you think, and that's that. But let me offer one way to look at the issue: the effect of coffee, delightful though it is, is just a cheap version of the clarity that truly lies beneath your hood.
You know how cold, distant people sometimes use alcohol to break through their inhibitions and be more friendly and warm, but it's always just a tad off because it's a wavery warm friendliness from the alcohol? And how pot smokers use that drug to be more relaxed and spiritual, but it's an unfocused, spacey sort of relaxed and spiritual? And candy addicts use sugar to get a burst of energy, but it's sort of bug-eyed overly revved up burst of energy? And LSD users use that drug for a taste of deeper consciousness, but they get lots of noise (randomly screwed-up consciousness rather than truly heightened consciousness) plus risk of bad trips?
Those things are giving people a cheap high - a taste of a deeper human quality, but shallow and coarse, and with poor health effects and inherently limited duration. If those qualities and states were achieved naturally, the health effects would be nill and the duration much longer-lasting, and the whole effect far, far deeper. Someone who's opened up his heart and drops his inhibitions is a zillion times warmer and happier (and likely healthier) than someone who's had a few drinks after work and starts pumping hands and telling jokes with loud voice and ruddy face.
You may want to ponder the above to illluminate your relationship with coffee. Then you might work to notice how meditation and asana (I strongly suggest backbends, which have a clarifying, recharging effect) offer what coffee offers.....even if only at 1/1000th scale for now. Feel the nuggets, however minute, of clarity and energy after practice, and compare them to the slightly shaky, jangled, time limited and system-draining effect of coffee. Then, use your attention to grow the nuggets. You can cultivate that state in yourself. You can cultivate any state in yourself.
If, after giving it a good shot (I don't mean just a few days), you decide that coffee definitely helps, and that you can't get there naturally, and you're not drinking so much coffee (more than a couple cups per day) as to harm your health, shoot, go ahead and drink coffee. I've seen a number of sages, gurus, and teachers wink at the habit.
Hope that makes sense. In any case, no need for guilt for some sort of spiritual failure. Go easy on yourself. Keep up your practice. Play with all this stuff - just have fun hacking your body and spirit. Do it like a curious, immersed child, and with feeling. Along with all the other good things that drop in your lap, insight on the coffee thing may arise, as well, when you least expect it. Yoga's subtractive; this practice makes it really easy to drop things; that's the whole inertia. But some things drop sooner than others. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 18 2005 11:39:29 AM |
|
|
|
sauravu
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - Sep 22 2005 : 9:23:05 PM
|
I have a different experience with alcohol . It opens me upto some sort of pranic frenzy . The whole body is in nerve tingling stage . Prana can be easily identified runninig around in the body . Curiously larger the number of alcohol I take in the better the discharges happening.
My question is : Does anyone have the same experience ?Is it normal? |
|
|
|
AYPforum
351 Posts |
Posted - Feb 05 2007 : 08:55:18 AM
|
| Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
| AYP Public Forum |
© Contributing Authors (opinions and advice belong to the respective authors) |
|
|
|
|
coffee & wine
